


Little Moments

by Pippinpaddleopsicopolis (Barnable)



Series: Together, We Are An Ocean [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Book 3: Fire, Canon Compliant, Childhood Memories, Day Three: Homesick, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Katara (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Late Night Conversations, POV Sokka (Avatar), Sibling Love, Water Siblings Week 2020, Western Air Temple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26498902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barnable/pseuds/Pippinpaddleopsicopolis
Summary: Katara is homesick. Sokka makes it his job to get her to smile again.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar)
Series: Together, We Are An Ocean [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933663
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Little Moments

There were a lot of reasons Sokka woke up in the night.

He had nightmares often and they got him up early more than he wanted to admit. He overthought everything and his mind sometimes got so active it pulled him from his sleep. He was ridiculously overprotective and leapt out of his sleeping bag at the quietest of sounds. The list went on and on, but not one of those was the reason he awoke that night. No, that night, it was because he knew in his gut that something was wrong.

Sokka had no idea _what_ was wrong, he just woke up and had an instinct. After spending the better part of his life depending on his sister, he kind of grew a sixth sense for her well-being, and it was tingling big time. Though he knew he was likely being ridiculous, Sokka sat up slowly, blinking the sleep from his vision as he glanced around the temple.

His conscious mind was surprised to find Katara missing, but his gut wasn’t disturbed in the least.

Rather than jumping to conclusions, Sokka pushed himself to his feet and took a deep breath, not bothering to grab his shoes or a hair tie before starting his walk around the temple. There were so many reasons that Sokka himself woke up in the night, there had to be a decent amount for his sister too. She was somewhere, he just didn’t know where. But he _did_ know she was a badass, and that was the only thing that kept him from panicking.

Unsurprisingly, after several minutes of walking around, Sokka found Katara sitting at the edge of the water; her feet dipped into it and one hand dragging through her hair. For a moment, Sokka thought he was interrupting something, but then he realized she wasn’t combing it, she was just twisting her fingers around it anxiously. He sighed and moved a little faster, not stopping until he was at her side.

“Hey. Okay if I sit?” Sokka waited for Katara to nod before he sat down, dipping his own feet in the water, and pushing his unkempt locks behind his ears. He almost expected Katara to make a joke about it, but she stayed utterly silent, staring down at the ripples near their feet. “Are you all right, Katara?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged, inhaling deeply as she bit down on her bottom lip. “It’s nothing. I’m just a little homesick.”

“Oh.”

That was something he related to. A lot. Another one of the reasons he often found himself waking up in the night were dreams of the tribe and an aching, empty hole in his chest where it should’ve been. He loved traveling with Aang, he really did, and he loved all their friends—even Zuko, who was really starting to grow on him after the Boiling Rock—but he missed their home more than he could ever express. He lost more tears to it during his slumbers than he cared to admit.

“Do you remember when we were little and Dad used to take us on fishing trips?” said Sokka, his own gaze turning to the cold water beneath them. Katara didn’t respond, but he went on anyway, hoping he could start to cheer her up. “We used to complain that we were so homesick, but he’d say we weren’t homesick because we’d only been gone for a few hours, and we didn’t even know what real homesickness was.”

“He was right,” Katara told him quietly, splashing the water with her feet. “We thought two hours was the end of the world and now we’ve been gone for months. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever be able to go home.”

“Of course, we’re going to get to go home, Katara. It might not seem great right now, after everything that happened with the siege, but I promise we’re going to win this. Aang is going to take down Ozai and we’re going to stop the Fire Nation and end the war and then we can go home. We’ll go home and Gran Gran will make your favorite mikigaq to celebrate.”

“What? Mikigaq isn’t my favorite, that’s you and Dad’s favorite.”

“Oh.” Sokka blinked, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. He was great with plans and numbers, but he’d never been so good at remembering the finer details of life and people themselves. “Then… what is your favorite? Wait, no! Don’t tell me! I can figure it out. It’s… uh… oh! It’s pancakes! Right? It’s pancakes!”

“Yep.” Finally, Katara turned to look at him, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “But do you remember what like on them?”

“Berries. Blueberries. Cranberries. Cloudberries! It’s cloudberries!”

Katara let the smile widen for just a second, nudging Sokka’s shoulder before she turned away again. For a second there, he’d thought he got through to her, but clearly he was wrong. She needed another push; he just didn’t quite know how to give it to her. Sokka hesitated, biting down on the edge of his lip, and staring to the water in silence. The pancakes got her smiling and so did the fishing. He had to have another memory in there somewhere.

“Okay, the fishing was pretty funny, but do you remember the first time Mom took us penguin sledding?” That time, Katara didn’t smile right away, but she glanced over to him and nodded. “You must’ve been like, four years old at the time. You wanted to go sooner, but Mom said you were too little. Dad always took me anyway, though, so I thought it was ridiculous.”

“Wait, what do you mean Dad took you anyway?” asked Katara, her eyes widening. “Mom said no penguin sledding until we were old enough.”

“I know, but she didn’t enforce that until you were born, or whenever Dad wanted to take you sledding, I guess. See, he kind of did it under everyone’s noses with me, and he got into a _lot_ of trouble with Mom for that. She made him promise to never take us sledding without her permission again after I almost got a concussion that one time. That was my fault, though. I was being stupid.”

“You’re always being stupid.” Admittedly, the comment wasn’t the easiest to shake off, but Sokka let it go. He knew that his sister didn’t mean anything by it, and he was more pleased that she was feeling well enough to make a joke than he was hurt by the words. “What about that time I asked you to steer for me and you plowed us into a snowbank?”

“ _I_ plowed us into a snowbank? Excuse you.” Sokka wrapped an arm around Katara’s shoulders, shaking his head slowly. “No, you’re remembering it wrong. That was the first time you ever tried to steer. You didn’t know what to do on the penguin, you freaked it out, and we went tumbling. That ring any bells?”

“Okay, maybe a few, but I definitely remember _you_ driving us into a snowbank a too.”

“Yeah, maybe, but we were tiny. The last time we fit on an otter penguin together must’ve been what? Ten years ago? Maybe even longer. And besides, I’ve plowed into _plenty_ of snowbanks without you. Not to mention all the other gross stuff we’ve found since we started traveling with Aang. Who knew that there were so many nasty things in this world?”

“Most people,” said Katara. She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder, her toes still gently kicking the water. “But most people don’t come from a frozen village where the worst thing you’ll encounter is spilled fish guts.”

“Wow, that’s a gross glamorization.” Sokka squeezed her arm, letting out a deep sigh. “You must be really homesick, huh?”

Katara only nodded. Though he felt like he should say something else, Sokka wasn’t quite sure what to do, and instead rested his head on Katara’s. It was quiet out there at night, just the faint sound of the wind blowing through the temple and the water lapping beneath their feet. If he closed his eyes and ignored how warm it was—okay, it was a _little_ chilly, but by his standards, that was warm—he could almost picture them back at the tribe.

Their feet hanging off the dock, the cool breeze flowing through their hair. Of course, Sokka rarely had his hair down so it never quite blew it around the way it was when he’d been woken at two in the morning, but still. Sitting there, comforting each other on hard nights and dipping their toes in the water on a dare. Sokka always cracked before his sister, but in his defense, he _did_ nearly get frostbite from one of their challenges before. He had every right to be a wimp.

“Do you really think we’re going to be able to do this?” asked Katara quietly. Her voice was almost lost to the wind, half filled with exhaustion and half sad and in need of encouragement. “I really do believe in Aang but sometimes it’s so hard, you know? It’s a huge thing we’re trying to do right now, and I do my best to keep up hope, but it just doesn’t always feel possible.”

“I know what you mean.” Sokka slid his head away from his sister but kept his arm around her shoulders. “I believe in all of you but sometimes I don’t— I don’t always believe in myself. And I know you’re going to say it’s ridiculous, but I really blame myself for what happened on the day of the invasion, and… I don’t know. I’m scared I’m going to mess up our next chance too, and the world’s going to end because of me. Because I wasn’t good enough.”

“You’re right, Sokka. That is _absolutely_ ridiculous. What happened during the invasion wasn’t your fault, we just got outsmarted, and it’s not going to happen again. Obviously, Fire Lord Ozai knew that we were going to come on the Day of Black Sun, but he won’t know when we come for him next. At least, that’s the plan. I really believe Aang can do it. I _know_ he can.”

“Yeah, I know he can too. We’ll just do our best and see what happens. I know it’s hard, but it’s not supposed to be easy. We’re kids, Katara, and the whole _world_ is on our shoulders. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for Aang, he— never mind, it doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is, we got this. You said you’re trying to keep your hopes up, and that’s what you have to do. Just keep believing it’ll be okay, and it will. We can do this.”

“We can do this. You’re right. Aang is strong, he can—”

“Hey, what are you guys doing?” Speak of the devil, it was Aang who walked up behind them, shuffling his feet on the ground and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with one hand. “It’s the middle of the night. We have to get up for training, Katara. And aren’t you on breakfast duty, Sokka?”

“No, that’s the Duke,” said Sokka, letting out a breath as he pulled away from Katara. “ _Someone_ doesn’t trust me to cook anymore, so…”

“Katara?”

“Zuko,” Katara corrected, smirking when she glanced over to her brother. “Sokka set the whole meal on fire when he got distracted by something while we were training the other day, and Zuko had to put it all out for him. Now he’s not allowed to mess with it anymore.”

Aang laughed, while Sokka only rolled his eyes. “Okay, well, you guys should come to bed. I don’t want you to be tired in the morning.”

“Yeah, we’re coming,” said Sokka, “thanks, Aang.”

He smiled before turning back to return to his bed. Sokka stepped away from the water and held out a hand, offering Katara help up. She took it gratefully, yawning as she rose to her feet. Neither of them said a word while they walked back over to their sleeping bags, but Sokka stopped just before they parted to make sure his sister was okay. It turned out he didn’t have to. She spoke first.

“Thank you,” Katara told him. “I know it’s not always easy for you—it’s not easy for any of us—but we’ll get through this. I know we will.”

“I know we will too, Katara.” Sokka gently clapped her shoulder, a reassuring smile on his face. “Just keep that hope up, okay?”

“I will, but only if you stop wearing those pants.”

He blinked, narrowing his eyes when he glanced down to the torn fabric. “They’re for sleeping in! Who cares?”

“Uh, normal people? Half your leg is hanging out!” She laughed, biting down on her lip as she crossed her arms. When she spoke again, her voice softened, the look in her eyes turning to one of compassion. “Really, Sokka, thank you. And if you ever need to talk about anything…”

“I know where to find you,” he finished.

Neither of them spoke another word before they turned to head back to sleep, but they exchanged one more smile. Though it wasn’t easy carrying half the weight of the world on your shoulders, they had each other’s backs. They would _always_ have each other’s backs, no matter what happened.


End file.
